Full Description
The terms 'creole' and 'creolization' have witnessed a number of significant semantic changes in the course of their history. Originating in the vocabulary associated with colonial expansion in the Americas it had been successively narrowed down to the field of black American culture or of particular linguistic phenomena. Recently 'creole' has expanded again to cover the broad area of cultural contact and transformation characterizing the processes of globalization initiated by the colonial migrations of past centuries.
The present volume is intended to illustrate these various stages either by historical and/or theoretical discussion of the concept or through selected case studies. The authors are established scholars from the areas of literature, linguistics and cultural studies; they all share a lively and committed interest in the Caribbean area - certainly not the only or even oldest realm in which processes of creolization have shaped human societies, but one that offers, by virtue of its history of colonialization and cross-cultural contact, its most pertinent example. The collection, beyond its theoretical interest, thus also constitutes an important survey of Caribbean studies in Europe and the Americas.
As well as searching overview essays, there are
- sociolinguistic contributions on the linguistic geography of 'criollo' in Spanish America, the Limonese creole speakers of Costa Rica, 'creole' language and identity in the Netherlands Antilles and the affinities between Papiamentu and Chinese in Curaçao
- ethnohistorical examinations of such topics as creole transgression in the Dominican/Haitian borderland, the Haitian Mandingo and African fundamentalism, creolization and identity in West-Central Jamaica, Afro-Nicaraguans and national identity, and the Creole heritage of Haiti
- studies of religion and folk culture, including voodoo and creolization in New York City, the creolization of the "Mami Wata" water spirit, and signifyin(g) processes in New World Anancy tales
- a group of essays focusing on the thought of Édouard Glissant, Maryse Condé, and the Créolité writers
and case-studies of artistic expression, including creole identities in Caribbean women's writing, Port-au-Prince in the Haitian novel, Cynthia McLeod and Astrid Roemer and Surinamese fiction, Afro-Cuban artistic expression, and metacreolization in the fiction of Robert Antoni and Nalo Hopkinson.
Contents
Illustrations
Introduction
Ulrich FLEISCHMANN : The Sociocultural and Linguistic Profile of a Concept
Articles
CREOLITY, GENERAL REFLECTIONS
Leon-François HOFFMANN: Creolization in Haiti and National Identity
Antonio BENÍTEZ-ROJO: Creolization and Nation-Building in the Hispanic Caribbean
Mervyn C. ALLEYNE: The Role of Africa in the Construction of Identities in the Caribbean
CREOLlTY, LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY
Armin SCHWEGLER: The Linguistic Geography of 'criollo' in Spanish America: A Case of Enigmatic Extension and Restriction
Anita HERZFELD: Language and Identity in a Contact Situation: The Limonese Creole Speakers in Costa Rica
Eva Martha ECKKRAMMER: On the Perception of 'Creole' Language and Identity in the Netherlands Antilles
Emilio Jorge RODRÍGUEZ: Creole Transgression in the Written / Oral Discourse of the Dominican / Haitian Borderland
Ulrich FLEISCHMANN & Alex-Louise TESSONNEAU: African Fundamentalism in the New World: The Case of the Haitian Mandingo
Frank MARTINUS: Creole Identity through Chinese Wall: Affinities between Papiamentu and Chinese
SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND SOCIAL PROCESS
Jean BESSON: Euro-Creole, Afro-Creole, Meso-Creole: Creolization and Identity in West-Central Jamaica, c. 1660-1999
Marián BELTRÁN NÚŇEZ: The Afro-Nicaraguans (Creoles): An Historico-Anthropological Approach to their National Identity
Jeannot HILAIRE: Haiti: The Creole Heritage Today
Bettina E. SCHMIDT: The Presence of Vodou in New Vork City: The Impact
of a Caribbean Religion on the Creolization of a Metropolis
VALORIZATIONS AROUND EDOUARD GLISSANT
Andrea SCHWIEGER HIEPKO: Creolization as a Poetics of Culture: Edouard Glissant's 'Archipelic' Thinking
Helmtrud RUMPF: Technological Orality as Promoter of Social Change in the Caribbean Realm
Sabine HOFMANN: Against Monolinguism: Roots, Rhizomes and the Conceptualization of Creole Language
J. Michael DASH: Anxious Insularity: Identity Politics and Creolization in the Caribbean
Kathleen GYSSELS : Maryse Condé on créolité
CASE STUDIES: FOLK CULTURE
Alex van STIPRIAAN: Watramama / Mami Wata: Three Centuries of Creolization of a Water Spirit in West Africa, Suriname and Europe
Pascale DE SOUZA : Creolizing Anancy: Signifyin(g) Processes in New World Spider Tales
CASE STUDIES: LITERATURE AND ART
Sylvia M. SCHOMBURG-SCHERFF : Women Versions of Creole ldentity in Caribbean Fiction: A Cultural-Anthropological Perspective
Marie-Jose N'Zengou-Tayo: lmaginary City, Literary Spaces: Port-au-Prince in Some Recent Haitian Fiction
Ineke PHAF-RHEINBERGER: Creole tori, the Waterkant, and the Ethics of a Nation: Cynthia McLeod and Astrid Roemer on Suriname
Christoph SINGLER: Guido Llinás' 'Black Paintings'; Afro-Cuban Aesthetics and Abstraction
CASE STUDIES: NARRATIVE METACREOLIZATION
Bénédicte LEDENT: Creolization in Robert Antoni's Blessed is the Fruit: A Linguistic Analysis
Gordon COLLIER: Spaceship Creole: Nalo Hopkinson, Canadian-Caribbean Fabulist Fiction, and Linguistic/Cultural Syncretism
CLOSING DISCUSSION
Marketplace
Wayde COMPTON: Culture at the Crossroads: Voodoo Aesthetics and the Axis of Blackness in Literature ofthe Black Diaspora
Augustine H. ASAAH: Gender Concerns in Calixthe Beyala's The Sun Hath Looked Upon Me
List of Contributors
Notes for Contributors
Books Received
